AntiguaDailyPhoto.Com

Business owners take note, how do you take something as mundane as a parking lot and turn it into a delightful experience? Put art there and everywhere!

This is the last of the mini series about artistic sculptures found in the green areas surrounding the parking lot at Santo Domingo del Cerro.

I hope you have enjoyed some of the art found in Antigua Guatemala. Let me know either way!

By the way, here are two mosaic mural art pieces by Shelley Rozell inspired by a couple of photographs taken by me. What an honor it is to me that Shelley Rozell had chosen two of my photos as the starting point for her gorgeous mosaic mural art. I promise I will take photos of the entire mosaic mural once it’s installed this coming November in La Antigua Guatemala. In the mean time, my best wishes for Shelley and all the other artists participating this mosaic mural.

I really like these ceramic sculptures found in the green areas of Santo Domingo del Cerro. I especially like this rabbit.

I am always writing “Follow the white rabbit” in the posts as a way of saying follow the links. Now, I have some questions that I need you to answer:

• Do you ever follow the links (follow the white rabbit)?
• Is it obvious to you that if you click on the photos, you get to see a larger version of them?

These beautiful and playful sculptures can be found in the green areas of Santo Domingo del Cerro, one of my favorite destinations around Antigua Guatemala for a side trip full of art, peace and delicious food. Make sure you include a trip to Santo Domingo del Cerro; they provide free shuttles which you can take at the entrance of Casa Santo Domingo.

I know that to keep abundant richly verdant mountains in Guatemala we have to have a 6-month rainy season. But, enough is enough, ya basta; we don’t need to have a full week of constant rains. Too much rain is not good for Guatemala either since too much rain breaks the country’s infrastructure, people’s lives are at risk with so many landslides, overflowing rivers and the collapsing of some bridges.

Just take a look at the report about the state of roads in Guatemala by PROVIAL at 6am. PROVIAL, short for Protección y Seguridad Vial (Road Protection and Safety), is part of the Ministerio de Comunicaciones, Infraestructura y Vivienda (CIV) or Ministry of Communications, Infrastructure and Housing. You can request information about the state of any given road in Guatemala or follow the punctual updates by @Provial in Twitter or by dialing 1520. (more…)

According to Efraín Enrique Recinos Valenzuela biography at his official website and at Wikipedia, he was born in 1928 in Xela, the informal name of Quetzaltenango City, Guatemala’s second largest city. Later on, he moved to Guatemala City to continue his studies and pretty much stayed for the remainder of his life. Efraín Recinos also worked extensively in Antigua Guatemala where you can find some his work at Santo Domingo del Cerro and at Casa Santo Domingo.

On Sunday, October 2, 2011, we said our goodbyes to Efraín Recinos, Guatemala’s most extraordinary and prolific artist. A Google search throws so much about Efraín Recinos that one may need a few days to get a glimpse of this prolific Guatemalan Picasso as described in the quoted text below.

Efrain Recinos, Guatemalan muralist, sculptor, engineer and architect, who among many other buildings designed the National Theatre in Guatemala City. On one of my first trips into the city, I saw, experienced and fell in love with his work, as it proudly embellished the many of the national buildings in Guatemala City. This was my first exposure to his work, but after much exploration throughout the city, I was surprise every time my friend Juan Pablo said, “that’s designed by Efrain Recinos too”.

To take a look at some of Efraín Recinos work and colorful anecdote, continue reading at Raising Mimo.

Here I share with you a slide show of some of his works found in Santo Domingo del Cerro. Click the four departing arrows icon inside the presentation to get a full screen slide show.

Below there’s a guided tour through the history of art in 89 portraits by Efraín Recinos who explains why he decided to realized such portraits. This tour goes by the name of Difusores Acústicos. (more…)

Guatemala’s largest photo festival Foto▸30 is a coordinated effort to have 30 days, the full month of September, dedicated to photography exhibits. As in previous years, Foto▸30 has a central theme, Nation for 2011. The photos shown here are for the set up of A 2 Caras photo exhibit at El Sitio Cultural.

This year I was invited to participate in the Alienation photo exhibit at N.O.A. art gallery in Guatemala City. I participated with two large format prints, 20″x30″, of photos previously shown here: Guatemalan Alienation and Virgin of Guadalupe Celebrations in La Antigua Guatemala.

Several of the photo exhibits will remain open for several weeks, so if you’re in Guatemala don’t miss the chance to visit them. Check out Foto▸30 website for dates, exhibit descriptions and galley addresses.

Watching the world-famous mime Tamagochy yanking smiles and laughs from the audience formed around his “maleta de la alegría” (happiness suitcase) I thought of the wonderful song “Garrick” composed and sang by the extraordinaire Guatemalan artist Gaby Moreno. You do remember Gaby Moreno, right? I shared a Gaby Moreno song and video with you in the Nostalgia Triggers post.

Below you will find the lyrics and video for the song Garrick by Gaby Moreno who was inspired in the poem Reir llorando (Garrick) by Juan de Dios Peza.

Can anybody help translating the lyrics for Garrick?

GARRICK

Yo vi la función
Fui testigo de aquella ovación
Eran mil, talvez más
Sin sospechar jamás
Sufrían del spleen
Escapaban de un ocio sin fin
El remedio infalible
Era ver al gran Garrick

Marionetas saltan y las ponen a bailar
Empieza la comedia y todos ríen sin parar
Ja, ja, ja, ja

Al poco tiempo un señor
Ante un médico se presentó
Su mirada oscura y triste decía
Que moría por morir
Siguió una larga interrogación
Y al ver que nada le causaba emoción
El médico exclamó
Tu mal se ha de extinguir
Al ver al gran Garrick

Marionetas saltan y las ponen a bailar
Empieza la comedia y todos ríen sin parar
Ja, ja, ja, ja
El hombre sonrió
Con ojos húmedos:
“Yo no me curo así…
Yo soy Garrick!”

The rainy season in Guatemala often plays bad jokes on planned events like weddings and cultural activities. Imagine the cultural event planner taken care of every little detail to have a successful activity outside, maybe at Ermita de la Santa Cruz or at the atrium of the Antigua Compañía de Jesús like in this case and people show up but they look for shelter inside or people don’t show up because of the heavy downpour. Well that’s exactly what happened for the Festival Artes Muy Especiales which main objective was to promote the cultural and educational benefits of the arts for handicapped people. The goal of the Festival of Very Special Arts was to bring awareness and sensitize the general public about the respect and the attention the handicapped people deserved by showing that there are no limitations for them if they are provided with the means to realize their aspirations.

Unfortunately, the turn over was very low while I was there because of the rain. One thing I noticed was the ramps placed at the entrance of the bathrooms which are not normally there. This made me realized how behind we are as a society in Guatemala to be fair and just to all the people. This is especially true for La Antigua Guatemala where there are virtually no ramps for wheelchairs and most sidewalks are uneven. I wonder what happened to La Antigua Guatemala Sin Barreras project, an initiative to remove the barriers posed by uneven sidewalks and the lack of ramps that I profiled before in AntiguaDailyPhoto. Of course, this municipal administration had a Plan de Recuperación de Banquetas, a sidewalk recovery plan which repaired some of the sidewalks so pedestrian can use them without having to invade the cobbled streets, but did not go far enough to accommodate wheel chairs.

Perhaps this will be another election-time campaign promise by the people running for the Mayor’s seat this year. What do you think?

I can almost think of the image above as window conceptual art. The combination of the pearls, the manikins, and the pan with a little spot light in the corner; everything behind bars on a public space stirs something in me which I am sure none of the elements do otherwise. A ‘je ne sais qoui’ impression.

Je ne sais quoi, yo no sé que in Spanish, it’s the expression use to describe something the moves you in special way without knowing exactly how or why. That’s the feeling I get from the photo above; some I-don’t-know-what sensation.

How about you?

Here’s a marimba sculpture found in Santo Domingo del Cerro representing Guatemala’s national musical instrument. How you like it?

He aquí una foto de la escultura de la marimba que se encuentra en Santo Domingo del Cerro; una representación artística del la marimba, el instrumento nacional de Guatemala. ¿Qué les parece?

Often enough I have heard “take art to the streets, to the people” from my artist friends and acquaintances. I believe that with the photo exhibit “Agua, Ríos y Pueblos” or “Water, Rivers and People” as it’s known in English, EspacioCE have achieved such slippery aspiration. EspacioCE is the name for the cultural proyects of Centro de Formación de la Cooperación Española (AECID) in La Antigua Guatemala.

For information on other cultural events, visit AgendaCulturalAntigua.com, our other cultural project.

A menudo he escucha a mis amigos artistas y conocidos decir: «hay que llevar el arte a las calles dónde está el pueblo». Considero que con la exhibición «Agua, Ríos y Pueblos» EspacioCE ha logrado tan resbaladiza aspiración. EspacioCE es el nombre que reúne todos los proyectos culturales del Centro de Formación de la Cooperación Española (AECID) en La Antigua Guatemala.

Para información sobre otros eventos culturales, visiten AgendaCulturalAntigua.com, nuestro proyecto de cartelera cultural.

“Agua, Ríos y Pueblos” is the title of the photographic exhibit on display at Parque Central right now. The “Water, Rivers and People” photo exhibit was inaugurated yesterday (Friday the 13) and will be be open until the end July; I was told, except for the panels located right on Parque Central which will be moved at the end of May. What a fabulous and gigantic photo display regarding water and the access to it. I barely had time to take a couple of shots before I had continue doing mandados; I promise I will spend more time at the Agua, Ríos y Pueblos so I can bring you more information. Stay tune!

The Santo Domingo del Cerro hosted a Baroque music concert on Palm Sunday, and well, after Nelo’s wonderful work on Processions, perhaps it is just a different post this time.

Going to these kinds of concerts is always an experience, and more so when you know one of the Concertistas. It was Carolina Palomo the one I knew, a good friend and for random reasons I had never ever heard her play. When music was about begin, I closed my eyes and let the music open them. Some minutes later I found myself grabbing my camera and to just shoot. I didn’t want to use flash because the concert was being videotaped, and most importantly the flash could distract the concertistas. Even so, some people were still using flash, so the decision of sacrificing ISO versus flash was not hard to make.

The music was life in every single breath, meaning the performance and the ambience of the place, was almost surreal. Some kilometers away I bet Nelo was taking photographs, and I thought that next time I’d photograph a procession, my ipod would make good company, so perhaps the music could help me get some cool shots like Nelo’s.

After the wonderful concert, we shared some lovely conversations with the musicians and some of their friends. All of them are just amazing and lovely people; they enjoy being part of the Ensamble Antiqua (yes, with a “q”).

How many times have you been in a baroque music concert?

text and photos by Arturo Godoy.

Yes Eric, Palacio de los Capitanes will be the new building for Museo de Santiago, which is the city and departamento’s museum. Museo de Armas de Santiago was, and still is for now, located next to the Municipal government offices; perhaps on the same building and that’s where the original mermaids were on display.

The night of the Antigua Guatemala Brand launching event I learned from the general director of museums of Guatemala that Palacio de los Capitanes (Palace of the Captains) will be the new location for Museo de Santiago, which will open its door to the public on May 18. Some of you may remember that May 18th is the International Museums Day; as always, follow the white rabbit. Ah… life is good in La Antigua Guatemala!

Remember, you heard it first at AntiguaDailyPhoto!

Believe it or not, there have been sightings of Bigfoot in La Antigua Guatemala. If also want to see Bigfoot on your next visit to La Antigua Guatemala, then take one of the shuttles to Santo Domingo del Cerro. See, here in Antigua Guatemala we make everything really convenient and trouble-free for you.

Can you guess how big is this Bigfoot?

P.S. Don’t forget to visit GuatemalaDailyPhoto.com which will launch on April 1, 2011. We will have many surprises there for you.